"Break Down Barriers of Distrust"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 9 (Supplement)

"Break Down Barriers of Distrust"

COME to the World's Fair, said President Roosevelt as he opened it in New York, and 60 nations answered him that they had come. Ho looked down on the Court of Peace, j;ig ail tie like everything else at the Pair, and saw waving above the 35,000 invited guests the flngs of all these nations. There were bands and banners. The red tunics of the Coltlstrearii Guards were drawn up beside the brown overalls of American workmen. Japanese uniforms were side by side with Red Indian feathers. Naval and military detachments wore ranked in orderly array. But the standard

bearers of the flags were all civilians. Thus was struck the note which the President emphasised in his welcome—that the American people had hitched their waggon to a start of goodwill, progress, and peace, in friendship to all, in enmity to none. The United States have, as he said, been principally colonised from the Continent of Europe. They who are the citizens of that great Republic may well offer up with their President the silent prayer that the years to come will break down the barriers of distrust between the countries of their forefathers, which, through the centuries, have led to strife and hindered friendship, and still do so. One World's Fair will not make summer of the world's winter discontent, but the President's words were

spoken at a moment and in surroundings that might turn the eyes of the world from the differences dividing them to the bonds that should unite them, and even to gaze upward to the stars. On every side are tokens of what the nations can do when they turn from the inventions of strife to the arts of peace. The many acres of the Fair, four times as large as Hyde Park in London, contain among its lawns and tree-shaded avenues examples of the advance in aviation, in marine transportation, railways, motor-car construction, electricity in every branch of activity, the contributions of science in medicine, in metals, in food. There are temples of Art and Music, overshadowed by a temple of Religion. The nations have joined in the competition to signalise themselves by the

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE AT COURT OF PEACE IN NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR

variety and originality of the architecture of their pavilions, the Italian pavilion exhibiting Italy's hydro-electric resources, the Japanese pavilion copied from an ancient Shinto shrine, the Polish pavilion with a soaring tower of gold lattice-work, the Irish pavilion built with walls glass on a shamrockshaped plan; the Soviet Russian building with a soaring figure of a worker in stainless stool, the British eliqrt housing the contributions of all its commonwealth in the largest pavilion of all —the list might be continued and yet bo far from exhausted. Looking on these structures and the many wonders of discovery and invention, the world may well stop, mark, and learn that these are the things which are most worth while. —From the Children's Newspaper.